To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, Review Graveyard is pleased to announce the fifth, sixth and seventh
seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise! However, before you
get too excited, you've probably seen these episodes already.
Richard McGinlay mans the science station to explain why Seasons
1-3 of The Original Series should be regarded as Seasons
5-7 of Enterprise. It is, in fact, quite logical...

Three of Star Trek's television franchises - The
Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager
- ran for seven seasons each. For a time, this seemed to be
the norm, a fact of life that could be taken for granted.
For years, the only odd man out was The Original Series,
which ran for only three seasons. Then Star Trek: Enterprise
got cancelled after four seasons. This was a shame, because
the fourth season had been (in my opinion) a very strong one
- but from this misfortune comes a comforting bit of mathematics:
3 + 4 = 7.

Yes,
by joining two franchises together, you get the magic total
of seven seasons. Not only that, but Star Trek's extra-long
first season compensates for the foreshortened fourth season
of Enterprise. Rather spookily, the total number of
episodes you get (counting the original pilot episode The
Cage and counting feature-length stories as two episodes)
if you add The Original Series' 80 to Enterprise's
98 is 178, the same number of shows that were produced under
the Next
Generation
banner.

Thematically,
the two series dovetail quite nicely. Enterprise establishes
numerous aliens that go on to play significant roles in Star
Trek, including the Andorians (introduced in Season 1),
Tholians, Tellarites (both introduced in Season 2), Orions,
smooth-headed Klingons, Organians and a Gorn (all introduced
in Season 4).

The
increasingly aggressive activities of the bumpy-headed Klingons
in the second-season episodes Marauders, Judgment,
Bounty and The Expanse can be seen as paving
the way toward the Klingon/human hostilities depicted in The
Original Series. The Romulan threat, established in Season
2's Minefield and developed during Season 4's The
Forge/Awakening/Kir'Shara and Babel One/United/The
Aenar storylines, is picked up more than a century later
in Balance of Terror during Star Trek's first
season, and is to an extent resolved in The Enterprise
Incident during the third and final season. Following
the events of Babel One/United/The Aenar, the Original
Series' second-season episode Journey to Babel
is further prefaced by the formation of the Coalition of Planets
involving humans, Andorians, Coridans, Tellarites and Vulcans
in Enterprise's final two-parter Demons/Terra Prime.
Throughout both series, the struggles of a Vulcan first officer
(respectively T'Pol and Spock) against suppressed emotions
remain a constant theme.

Even
more remarkable is the development of mood and morality across
the series. The first two seasons of Enterprise are
notably pacifistic. During Season 3, the crew, in particular
Captain Archer, are forced to employ increasingly ruthless
tactics in order to complete their desperate mission in the
Delphic Expanse. This militaristic attitude continues into
Season 4 and is reflected in the hawkish demeanour of The
Original Series' first season. Over the course of the
final two seasons, Star Trek's outlook becomes increasingly
anti-war, thus completing the cycle.

Not
even the time jump between the two series need prevent them
from being regarded as a whole. The latter end of Enterprise's
fourth season does more than its fair share of time-jumping
by introducing a 23rd-century starship (the Defiant)
in the two-part In a Mirror, Darkly, then skipping
from the year 2155 to a 24th-century re-creation of 2161 in
These are the Voyages... After that, further leaps
to 2254 and beyond don't seem so unusual.

The
change of title from Star Trek: Enterprise to just
Star Trek need not be an obstacle either, because the
series has already changed its name from just Enterprise
during Season 3. The change of designation therefore seems
more like an evolutionary process: from Enterprise
to Star Trek: Enterprise to Star Trek. The differences
in theme music and opening title sequences needn't seem out
of place either, because a precedent has been set for these
too, by the specially adapted opening and closing titles of
In a Mirror, Darkly.

Nor
need the extra-long (63 minutes, 30 seconds) duration of The
Cage pose a problem. In fact, it's rather handy. The total
running time of The Cage plus the first two regular
Original Series episodes (going by stardate order,
Where No Man Has Gone Before and Mudd's Women)
is 160 minutes, which is practically the same duration as
four episodes of Enterprise. This means that the additional
"final" four episodes of Season 4 of Enterprise could
be presented in the following format:

Episode
23 could comprise the first 40 minutes and 23 seconds of The
Cage, plus the 26-second end credits. A recap of the closing
montage from These are the Voyages... (showing Enterprises
from three different centuries) could be played and then be
"rewound" to the 23rd-century ship, NCC-1701, perhaps reusing
the opening shot from the first scene of The Cage as
it closes in on a cutaway view of the bridge module. Over
all of this, captions could explain that the year is now 2254,
93 years after the events shown in These are the Voyages...,
and that Captain Christopher Pike now commands a new Starship
Enterprise. This pre-titles "teaser" could end with a
close-up of Pike on the bridge. The episode itself could end
with Pike's shocked reaction to Vina's announcement that she
is his wife in the Talosians' latest fantasy scenario. Total
running time: approx 41 minutes, 30 seconds.

Episode 24 could include a 60-second recap, 45-second opening
titles, the final 23 minutes of The Cage, the first
16 minutes 06 seconds of Where No Man Has Gone Before,
and new end credits lasting approximately 50 seconds. The
two stories could be bridged by caption text over the closing
fanfare of The Cage, explaining that eleven years later
- in 2265 - the Enterprise has a new captain, James
Kirk... The episode could end with the creepy moment in which
the super-powered Gary Mitchell seems to look out of the viewing
screen at his observer, Kirk. Total running time: approx 41
minutes.

Episode
25 could comprise a 40-second recap, 48-second opening titles,
the final 32 minutes of Where No Man Has Gone Before,
the first 08 minutes 40 seconds of Mudd's Women, and
50-second end credits. The two narratives could be bridged
by caption text over the closing fanfare of Where No Man
Has Gone Before, explaining that several months have passed
and the Enterprise has undergone extensive repairs
and refitting... The episode itself could end with Harry Mudd's
revelation about his female companions: "This is me cargo."
Total running time: approx 41 minutes, 30 seconds.

The
next three seasons could each comprise 25 or 26 regular-length
Star Trek episodes, as can be seen in the "viewing
plan" I have devised for "Seasons 1 to 7" of Star Trek:
Enterprise, which follows.

The
running order of The Original Series is a tricky business.
The original broadcast order of the episodes was very different
from the production order. The order by stardate is different
again. I have favoured stardate order for the viewing plan,
so these dates are given for Original Series episodes,
where known, in addition to production order [#] numbers,
which are shown throughout the list. Where stardates are not
known, I have favoured production order instead. (For a detailed
analysis and explanations of stardate oddities, click here.)